London

London…
Well we started off early morning 6.30 on Saturday(Can you believe it!!)It started off pretty bad,vasu didn’t show up so we had to goto his B&B and pick him up.Then we went to Parkway where Bharat,Santhosh,Anupama and Nagashree were waiting.The train was on-time which is a wonder to a guy from india where Timetables are just an eyewash since no one follows them!Initially me and pradyumna decided to booze on the train,but morning sickness got the better of us.Our ticekts were booked upto London Victoria where we were supposed to search for an accomodation(Which we had not done yet as they were all boooked online),since Manoj was joining us from Slough,we had to get down at the Paddington station.It was an hou’s journey by train from Bristol parkway station to London Paddington.We saw some amazing landscapes,sunrise,breweries;-).We also went through this place called Reading(spelled Red-ing)
It can be called “Bangalore of West England”.Software firms,MNCs were quite a lot here,also heard there were a lot of Indians.We finally reached Paddington which looked like the Windows Wallpaper(The Brown train station pic)We met up with Manoj and we wanted to have our breakfast but others decided to got to central london and have it there.This was the point where we were acquainted with the TUBES!!!What an amazing concept and implemented with such efficiency that you reach your destination on time and you don’t miss out on a train.
From the London Paddington station we to Central London through the Tubes.It took us nearly half an hour to get there.The first grandeur to set our eyess on was the Big Ben.What an awesome peice of Construction.It stood nearly metres away from us and quite high.All of London’s attractions were in a square of 15*15.YOu reach on of the attractions,and you can cover them all.From the big ben you could see the London Eye,it was nothing but a giant wheel but had cubes at the rim which travel very slowly,really slow.
Since we had not had our breakfast,we decided to hit a fast food joint,our luck none of them was in the vicinity.We had to search for it and finally found a Subway,since some of them were non-vegetarians they weren’t interested in Subway,fortunately Mcdonalds was not far off and we headed there.Once we finished our morning breakfast,we headed for the Trafalgar Square and it was quite good,not that big an attraction but still an open space.After a lot of photos and pranks we decided to got Buckingham Palace.Now this is one place we definitely wanted to see.After all the images and sights on television,we definitely wanted to go there.It was just a short walk from trafalgar Square and we decided to take it.
When we reached there,the first thing that struck me was the size of the place.It was soooooo small,smaller than vidhan Soudha,seriously!I thought it would look much bigger from the images on TV but it was sooooooo tiny!Well after it sunk in,we got a few photos and got to know that a guard change is gonna take place.The whole place was already crowded with 1/2 hour left for the event,so we decided to stick there fearing for the lack of place if we c`zame back later.manoj told us that it wasn’t quite that spectacle,a few guards go in and a few guards come out and that’s it.We were there and we decided to see it even though it was boring!and it finally happened,a band,a few guards,outside inside and everything was over…sheesh,we waited for this.
The time was nearly quarter past 12,time for lunch.We had heard of a place called Eastham in the East of London where we get good south indian food and decided to go there.It was nearly 45 minute journey and when we reached there,there was a board outside in TAMIL,Tamil for god sake.I’m nearly 1000 of miles away from my place and i can see a board written in tamil.It was then that i came to know that the people there are from SriLanka,mostly!!We reached the place,a short walk from the station and had good south indian food.After that started our hunt for a B&B for the night’s stay.Searched and searched and we never got one.Some one in eastham suggested that we get good B&Bs in a place called Whitechapel.It was on the way return through the tube so we decided to stop over there and look for accomodation.The girls stayed over at the station itself while 6 of us walked all over the place.The moment we got out of the station,we could sense a familiar smell…..Halal Meat.Then we came to know that this place is like Shivaji Nagar in Bangalore.
Eventhough it was unanimous that we are not gonna stay there,we decided to look for a place,good thing we did not get it.After a gruelling 3 hours,we didn’t notice that we had reached the next tube station!Caught a tube,went back to Whitechapel and joined the girls(Manoj had kept them company,so it wasn’t like we left them alone!)They said they wanted to get back home to bristol.It was unfortunate that at the very moment,we were able to get accomodations for the girls at Eastham itself but they never budged.We didn’t want to force them,so we went to the bus station near Gatwick and got them tickets to bristol.That’ll be the last time that we travel with girls and the last tine they’ll be travelling with us.
From then on we had only one plan,Piccadilly!Manoj was not sure about the last train to Slough so we enquired about that and we planned the night,me pradyumna and sripathy will be going to Piccadilly while Manoj,bharat,Vasu and sathosh will be going to london eye.The train to piccadilly circus itself was a awesome one girls doing all sorts of things and guys,i don’t want to go into the details:-).We reached piccadilly at around 9:00-9:30pm and we wanted to have a look around before we settled down.Piccadilly is the place to be for bachelors,you’ll get every stuff imaginable,EVERY STUFF!
We settled down in an indian pub and drank the night away.Cleared the place at around 2:00am sunday and had our dinner at BK.Then it hit us,We did not have a place to stay,so we decided to stay at piccadilly until the morning and clean up in some public place.But we were too tired to even walk.So we got a taxi and asked him to take us to some B&Bs.He took us to Belgrave street and we were able to find a B&B,though costly had to live with that.Had a good night sleep and continued with the rest of the journet the next day.These guys had already been to Baker Street,home of sherlock holmes.We were running behind so we had to get our breakfast and rush to the tower bridge which was our rendezevous point.We went to the see the crown jewels especially the kohinoor diamond.We did actually see that and got into a bit of a controversy there over a photo which i don’t want to explain…long story short I WAS SUCCESSFUL.After this we wanted to goto madam tussauds’ but we were running short of time.We got a quick lunch at the place opposite madam tussauds’ and left for the london bus station.Vasu was lost in the gatwick station and we had to rush and we caught the bus at the signal just before the gatwick station.We were about to miss the bus by a whisker.Reached bristol at 20:00 roamed around the city a bit went back to pradyumna place..had a quick drink and got a long deserved sleep|-)